As I write this the Missouri State track meet is getting underway in Jefferson City with twelve KHS athletes competing. We will have a complete rundown of this event early next week but let me just say that I fully expect to be writing about some if not all of them bringing home medals. Both relay teams that are competing have to be considered the top relay teams in the state with the girls 4x800 possibly the best relay team KHS has had in a very long time.

Austin Motley is also competing in the state tennis tournament today in what I’m sure is for him the culmination of four years of hard work.

Every year at the start of the St. Louis Cardinals season I always look on the schedule to see when they will play the Dodgers and the Royals. Those have always been the two series I have most looked forward to. This year the Cardinals play them back to back. They begin a three game series in Los Angeles tonight against the struggling Dodgers who definitely have not performed up to the level of their payroll which is the highest in baseball. The Dodgers have battled several key injuries but also haven’t gotten very good offensive production out of the players who were expected to provide the bulk of it. The Cardinals on the other hand have gotten boosts from surprising places as several young players have stepped up and performed very well. In most years the amount of injuries the Cardinals pitching staff has had to deal with would be crippling but this year things are different. They continue to get excellent starting pitching despite the fact that three of the pitchers counted on to make up the starting rotation have gone down with injuries. Chris Carpenter certainly appears to be on the road to recovery, Jaime Garcia is lost for the season, and Jake Westbrook’s status is still very much up in the air. However, the Cardinals have not missed a beat and have not only compiled the best record in the major leagues but have done so by continuously having to bring rookie pitchers up from the minor leagues. The most fascinating part of this is that there are still more young pitchers down there who are probably ready to pitch in the major leagues. It has made for a very special season thus far and I really think the best is yet to come. Anyway, the Cardinals head to Kansas City after their series with the Dodgers to begin a four game series with The Royals with the first two being played in Kansas City and the final two being played in St. Louis. No, I don’t have any idea why they are doing it that way. MLB has done that with several of the interleague games next week.

The Royals on the other hand are floundering badly. This once promising season has turned into a nightmare as their offense simply cannot get on track. They are getting very good starting pitching but that starting pitching is getting very little run support. The Royals much like the Dodgers are not even coming close to playing up to their ability. The Cardinals are playing two very vulnerable teams over the next seven days and it will be interesting to see how many of those games the Cardinals can win.

The biggest weekend of the year for auto racing takes place this weekend with over 1100 miles being raced on Sunday alone. We get things started on Sunday with the running of the Indianapolis 500 which is certainly not the major race it was when I was growing up but it’s still an awesome spectacle. For the first time in the race’s history four women will be among the 33 drivers starting the race. Two other drivers will be looking to tie the record for the most wins in Indy 500 history.

NASCAR on the other hand will present its longest race of the year as the Coca-Cola 600 takes place on Sunday evening. This is always a drama filled race and this year shouldn’t be any different.

The Senior PGA Tour is in St. Louis this weekend for one of their biggest tournaments of the year featuring some of the most legendary names in professional golf.

We are going to be on a slightly different schedule next week as far as the blog goes. Due to the Memorial Day holiday there will not be a blog on Monday. However, there will be a super sized blog on Tuesday covering all this weekend’s sports action and of course looking forward to what is coming up next week. We will then get things back to normal next Friday before assuming our normal three day a week blog updates the following week. I hope that everyone has a safe and enjoyable Memorial day weekend and we’ll see you back here on Tuesday. Thanks as always for supporting this and all the blogs on the site.